About

Teaching Together is a ministry of St. Peter’s Parish that partners with Catholic schools to provide adults with special needs employment within Catholic schools.

Teaching Together was founded by Mary Forr and Megan Osterhout in 2014. The program has already been piloted at Our Lady of Mercy High School in Atlanta, GA where Mary Forr formerly taught. It will be instituted at St. Peter School in Washington, D.C. in 2015.

In Atlanta, a young woman named Lani DeMello worked as Mary’s teacher’s aide. Lani, who was born with Down Syndrome, worked very hard to perform the administrative and management tasks that Mary assigned to her, developing her own skills while enabling Mary to spend more time on instruction.

Lani began class with prayer, took attendance, kept small groups on task, made photocopies, kept individual students on task, and corrected multiple-choice assessments. Unfortunately, however, Lani was not paid. The long-term goal of Teaching Together is to provide the opportunity for adults like Lani to work in Catholic schools across the country performing the tasks of a teacher’s aide. To do this, we need your assistance.